I think it will be a knock down drag out fight which I will be happy to witness.

They would arm wrestle and Desantis would win because he has bigger hands.

I do find the whole thing pretty hilarious. DeSantis obviously cares more about the “right-wing project” than Trump does; Trump just cares about winning. I think DeSantis is more likely to step aside than Trump, but it will be interesting to see them duke it out.

During the primaries the most favored candidate would be chosen. It always happens that way…

I’m really not sure, but I lean towards thinking DeSantis will run for president.

I think DeSantis will win if he winds up being the Republican presidential candidate. In 2018 he won by something like 30,000 votes, and now he is up over a million votes, but Florida is not completely done counting.

Maybe the powers in the party pressure him to wait his turn. He is governor, he could just be patient and wait for his term to be over, but my guess is he strikes while the pan is hot and goes for it.

Trump’s threats have so far failed to intimidate DeSantis nor has Trump come up with a good insulting nickname for him. I don’t like either of them and would like to see them battling each other to win an election they both say they don’t believe in.

I just saw on the news, they were talking about this very topic. They showed a video of Trump calling DeSantis “Ron De Sanctimonious” and saying it would be a very big mistake if DeSantis runs against him. The anchor said that Trump said he knows more unflattering things about DeSantis than anyone. They asked Leslie Graham what he thinks and he said “take it for what it’s worth” and that if Trump decides to run, which he probably will, he will have about six months out there by himself (before DeSantis makes his decision. It’s going to be interesting because in my opinion, both Trump and DeSantis are very full of themselves.

I think DeSantis will run. Trump said he had a lot of dirt on him though, so depends on how dirty it actually is.

To use a turn of phrase that JLeslie uses in other contexts “I’ve been saying for months” that DeSantis will be the nominee. I believe it even more strongly after yesterday’s elections. Many Trump backed nominees didn’t do well.

De Santis would get the nomination and lose his presidential run. In the real world though, where deplorable maga-maniacs exist, trump gets the nomination. Also loses the presidential race.

Trump will be able to put feelers out for a few months and if it looks like he can’t win I bet he backs out on his own to save face. The question is, will Republicans still rally around him so much that he feels he can win?

Trump could start framing the narrative as Trump in 2024 and DeSantis in 2028 and 2032 as the “future of the party.” I doubt he’ll do that though. It sounds like he’s I stead going to try to diminish DeSantis.

I know I still wish it had been Hillary in 2008 and 2012 and Obama 2016 and 2020, so That’s where my idea comes from.

@mazingerz88 Why do you think DeSantis would lose if he winds up being the nominee? I think he has a great chance.

If Republicans want to have even the proverbial snowball’s chance in hell, they should not nominate Trump in 2024. However, I don’t think they know that. Much like the Bernie Bros. who don’t understand how marginal a group they are, Trump’s loyalists don’t realize how unpopular he is. They think 2016 proves he’s a viable candidate, not recognizing that he was running against one of the most universally despised politicians of recent decades (until Trump decided elections don’t apply to him in 2020). He won in 2016 SOLELY because a huge number of voters were motivated to vote AGAINST Hillary.

Their inability to accept his unpopularity is what made the 2020 election hoax so easy to sell. Because it fits with their confirmation bias. It can’t be that their Lord and Savior really lost…it must be fraud!

DeSantis on the other hand is an actual experienced governor and politician. Agree or disagree with his policies, he’s not the complete nitwit Trump is. But I don’t think he has the charismatic stranglehold on the GOP’s base that Trump has. And in primaries, the base is what matters. The fact that DeSantis would be the better general election candidate won’t matter. In a Trump v DeSantis showdown, Trump will win the primary.

The question is WILL Trump run? I honestly don’t know. Trump LOVES the adulation he gets from all of this. You can see it on his face. He’s in heaven. But we know that he knows that the fraud thing was a lie. Except for a few sycophants, all of his advisors were telling him so. Many are on record that they did so. So he knows that he couldn’t even beat Joe Biden, who didn’t even RUN A CAMPAIGN. Biden sat in his basement most of the election. Even as narcissistic as Trump is, it’s hard to believe that he doesn’t understand that he would lose in 2024. And Trump HATES to lose. He loses alot…he just never admits it.

So will he run? I don’t know. I know he hates to lose and probably knows he can’t win…but if he cedes the nomination, then DeSantis de facto takes over as the GOP’s figurehead and Trump loses power and influence. It’s hard for me to square that fact with Trump’s inherent self interest and narcissism. This is not a man who gives a flying f*** about the GOP’s goals or ideology. He cares about 1 thing – Trump. So even if he loses in the general election, I think he WILL run…and he WILL f*** up the Republicans for 2024.

That’s my guess. But I have low confidence because Trump is such a wild card.

@JLeslie He’s a trumpish Republican minus the charm. A strong Dems candidate will kick him to the curb.

Btw, I think “saving face” is not in the orange clown’s…notes written on his palm.

What’s interesting is that a lot of people Love Trump, and a lot of people (from both parties) dislike Trump. Trump loves Trump so love is blind, and he has a lot of money, but the news people were saying that Trump’s presence brings out the Democrats to vote blue, which is not good for the Republicans, and may be why a lot of Republicans lost where they were expected to win.

A friend speculated that maybre Trump will run and pick DeSantis as his running mate. That will be interesting too. I don’t know if DeSantis wants to be second fiddle.

My hope is that Trump backs out and DeSantis Gets the nomination. There’s way too much emotion around a Trump candidacy. DeSantis has enough hurdles to mount without battling Trump. I like Desantis policies and he did a great job with covid and the hurricane but he’s not a very inspirational speaker I doubt anyone could honestly say that they are better off than the were 2 years ago but with all the emotion surrounding Trump, the Dems were able to win way more seats than they should of based almost totally on hatred for Trump. I know we can’t eliminate emotion from the election process but it would be nice to see policy take a bigger role in this process. Trump needs to let go in order to reduce the hate and discontent surrounding him. Simply defeating him in an election won’t solve the problem and will leave the Repubs divided. He needs to relinquish the reigns of power. Unfortunately I don’t think that will happen.

@jca2 I feel DeSantis wouldn’t want to be VP. Just my feeling based on nothing that he has said or implied.

@mazingerz88 So, how do you explain DeSantis winning by over a million votes? You just think Crist was a poor candidate? I think people who HATE DeSantis, really don’t know everything he has done or not done. They mostly just listen to media that wants to hate him. I hate the stunt he did with Disney and a few other things, but some of what he supposedly did he didn’t actually do. It’s somewhat propaganda or half truths.

The question in my mind is does he shift right to run in a national election and is he as evil as Trump that he will encourage White Supremacists? Will he try to make it even harder to vote? Republicans at large in the country generally are against mail-in voting EXCEPT in Florida. Will he DeSantis suddenly be anti-mail-in voting? He actually made some laws better, allowing counting three weeks ahead of Election Day. Some voting laws he made worse. In my opinion.

^^Crist was a very poor candidate. Can DeSantis transform himself into someone likeable nationwide? Doubt it.

@mazingerz88 My Republican friends all over the country think DeSantis is amazing. Research is showing DeSantis has incredible name recognition around the country. Are you saying your Republican friends don’t like him?

That will be the primary to watch in two years.

I was listening to Fox News before just to hear what they had to say, and they had a Republican strategist on saying that DeSantis is a better candidate for President than Trump, because DeSantis is like Trump as far as being popular, but without the baggage that Trump has.

I am guessing DeSantis will be meeting with people in the Party within the next few months to decide whether he is going to go for it and what his backing will be. If he passes it up in 2024, then who knows what will happen six years from now. Sometimes you have to take an opportunity when it’s presented, otherwise life gets in the way (illness, family issues, politics, etc.).

@jca2 Exactly. His wife had breast cancer not long ago, I assume it was an early stage, not that I’m diminishing that type of diagnosis. The way they talked about it she had “treatment and surgery and is now cancer free.”

They have young children and I know how terrifying a cancer diagnosis can be for a parent worrying about their children not having a mother during crucial years. We all know people who have their breast cancer reoccur, so it must be a concern.

They could have decided as a family not to be more ambitious and be grateful for her health, but I get the impression she might feel like the time is now for her to be a US First Lady and it’s not just him pursuing the presidency. She might feel her mortality much more than the average person her age. He indicated in his debate with Crist that he has his sights on running.

Trump’s ego may have him run on the “Trump Party” as a third candidate if DeSantis got the nod from RNC !

Did you hear what Biden just said about DeSantis taking on Trump? LMAO.

That it will be fun to watch. Ha!

Sounds like Trump has blackmail on his mind for DeSantis ! ! !

https://www.cnn.com/2022/11/08/politics/trump-desantis-2024-warning-shot

^^ Is there butter on that popcorn?

“Video at Eleven !” Penguin

@JLeslie What did Biden say?

@jca2 “It will be fun to watch.”

Stay tuned…...

@JLeslie A friend theorized that Trump will badmouth DeSantis and then take him as his VP, the way Biden and Harris were going at each other in the opposition and then he asked her to be his VP.

@jca2 It’s possible, but I think DeSantis would first go all out to try to be president, and I’m still not sure he would accept being VP, but maybe with Trump’s age he’d consider it.

I think DeSantis wins against Trump in the primaries.

On The Today Show, they were talking about how DeSantis had such a big win in FL, but Trump tweeted that when he ran (Trump ran), he won by so many more votes than DeSantis. They also showed Republicans saying Trump is done and made a mistake by campaigning for far right wing candidates. They said how Trump hurt candidates with his righ twing stance, and for candidates he helped, they were in red states anyway. They showed Trump saying that for candidates who won, he should get all the credit and for candidates who lost, he should not be blamed. I took it to be a joke but knowing Trump, he was serious.

^^Lol. I saw yesterday Trump was saying that he deserves all the credit for winners and none of the blame for losers. I really think he laughs at his followers behind their back that they will do exactly that.

Trump is done because he campaigned with right wing candidates? How about he has played with right wingers and hate groups for 6+ years?!

If suddenly Republicans are waking up that’s great, but a long time coming.

A few friends of mine in Tennessee woke up about the Republican Party since TN has now become a zero exceptions for abortion state. One friend posted on Facebook consistently for the last month that she was voting for the Democrat for governor for her first time in 30 years. Gave me some hope, but it doesn’t help in that state, it’s too red. Abortion wasn’t on their ballot otherwise.

I suggest to start stocking up on popcorn. It’s about to happen.

@JLeslie He may be done – I hope so – because a number of the candidates he backed didn’t win. I don’t think he will be seen as having the power to lead the party that he did have. It’s all about winning.

@janbb Let’s say he’s done. Are Democrats just as freaked out about DeSantis that it won’t matter? The country will still be divided, terrified, anxiety ridden, desperate, etc.? I know a lot of people who think DeSantis is one of the worst people on earth and consider him to be a mini-Trump.

@JLeslie I can’t speak for Democrats, I can only speak for myself as an independent thinker who usually aligns with the party. I think DeSantis’s avowed policies of censorship and bigotry are loathsome but I still see him as within the system. Trump is in a whole different category of crazy with his narcissism and legions of flying monkeys.